


Blank

by merelypassingtime



Category: Venom (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Other, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 19:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21041360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelypassingtime/pseuds/merelypassingtime
Summary: In an alternate universe where only humans have the name of their soulmates written on them, both Eddie and his symbiote are singular, one for having such a mark, and the other for their lack thereof.





	Blank

They hated the mark.

It had been there since their creation, an oddity and an imperfection; both things that were aborrant to a race that prized conformity above all things. Really, it was no surprise they had been rejected so quickly.

They knew that rejection probably explained the deep and inexplicable yearning for something that they felt, but even in their earliest memories when they had been accepted by their own kind, they’d still been incomplete somehow.

In time they learned to hide both flaws. The mark they disguised among the twisting white lines on their surface and the loneliness they buried under a mask of hate and aggression. 

It didn’t make the other Klyntar take them back, but it helped on the cruel, hard path that rejection forced them to.

~

Eddie’s earliest memories were of doctors and needles and endless testing, all centering around his right forearm and something that it lacked. 

At the end of every round of tests there would be gravely spoken words and heads shaken in negation, and his father would drag him to a new place and a new set of doctors to start the process over. 

Eddie wondered what was so wrong with him, but none of the sad faced doctors would tell him. Whatever it was, Eddie knew it was bad. He also guessed it was the reason his father couldn’t look at him without flinching.

It wasn’t until his second week of kindergarten that he learned what he was missing. 

Even though he’d been given strict orders to keep the sleeves of his shirt down, the other children in his class had no compunction about baring their arms and the ‘soulmarks’ on them.

He’d heard the term before, whispered over his head by innumerable doctors but had no idea what it meant. They all refused to answer when he asked them.

Now, when he shyly asked the boy showing off the word written on his arm to a group of other children, the entire group stared at him like he was stupid. 

“It’s my soulmark, duh,” the boy said.

Eddie blushed red, but persisted, “Yeah, but what is a soulmark?”

“It’s the name of your soulmate. Everyone has it written on their arm so you can find them. See, I’m gonna grow up and marry someone named Dagmar.”

A girl in the group demanded, “What kind of name is Dagmar?”

“It’s a good name,” the boy shot back hotly. “And if it’s a bit weird, that just means it’ll be easier to find her!”

“Oh...” the girl said, now looking jealous.

Before they could get more sidetracked, Eddie asked, “And everyone has a soulmark?”

Instantly, Eddie regretted the question as the look everyone turned on him was not suspicious. A different boy finally broke the silence. “Are you stupid? Of course everyone has one! What kind of freak doesn’t have a soulmate?”

Several of the kids in the group laughed, repeating, “Yeah, a freak!”

Eddie laughed along with them, eager to fit in, but he kept one hand firmly around the cuff of his shirtsleeve, hiding his bare arm from view.

~

They had been left there to die, they knew that. 

Abandoned yet again by their race because they couldn't hide their longing for a bond as easily as the mark they still bore. 

They didn’t even care anymore, dying would be better than being doomed to emptiness.

Or at least that is what they thought until Peter Parker had come, looking for a costume and found them.

Something about his physiology felt indefinably right, even if his mind was a shade too bright and simple to be comfortable. Still, joining with him was the closest they’d ever come to feeling complete and they let themself bond more full with the human than they had with any of their previous hosts, taking on several of Peter’s spider-like qualities in an effort to be the very best ‘costume’ they could for him.

It wasn’t perfect though; there was always a slight wrongness, the feeling of being so tantalisingly close to perfection but not being able to fully achieve it. They were still incomplete, separate, alien, alone. 

Finally, they had sought to fill that remaining emptiness by bonding fully with Peter permanently, only to be rejected yet again. But Spider-Man hadn't just cast them out and imprisoned them, as others had before him, he had also tried directly to kill them.

It was fate, if there was such a thing, that saved them from death at the hands of their beloved host, and in doing so also gave them the perfect host so long after they’d given up on finding such a thing.

~

Over the years Eddie had gone from embarrassed and ashamed of his blank arm to perversely proud of it. If he was going to be unloved at least he was the best at it.

Being unlovable was probably the only thing he’d ever really succeeded at, and now, with his marriage over, his career in ruins, and his life coming to an end, he consoled himself with the knowledge that at least there wasn’t a soulmate anywhere out there that he’d failed too.

He ran the tip of the blade he held gently over that blank expanse of skin, knowing it wouldn’t be unmarred much longer. When the knife reached his wrist he took a deep breath, bracing himself to make the cut down. 

That was when the first drip of black hit his arm.

He stared at it stupidly for a long moment, knife still posed over the vein in his wrist, until a second drop fell, startling him out of his trance.

Irritated, he relaxed his grip on the knife, moving the point away from his skin so he could swipe the thick black stuff away with the back of his hand, but before he could it disappeared, the spots seeming to sink right into his skin. 

“What the hell,” he said, rubbing his knuckles over the clean area curiously. 

He looked up at the vaulted ceiling of the church high above him, trying to find the source of the drips only to have a dark mass drop onto his upturned face.

The impact knocked him back sprawling across the worn hardwood floor, the knife falling from his hand as he reached up to claw at the substance covering his face and blotting out his vision. 

At the same time a sudden wave of sharp, alien emotions overwhelmed his own thoughts, a roiling cocktail of fear, betrayal, and anger that he was sure wasn’t his own but that nevertheless settled into his mind just like the blackness was soaking into his skin and sliding through his open mouth and down his throat, stifling his scream of terror.

Even as the black stuff covering his face vanished inside him, uncovering his eyes, a different kind of darkness overtook him. He passed out.

When he woke minutes or hours later, he was cold, stiff, and disordanted, but somehow his mind felt more clear than it ever had. It was as if something had been repaired that he’d never realised was broken, and when a small voice sounded in his head, whispering words of revenge and trickling a steady stream of anger and hate that joined with his own, that felt completely right too.

Standing up, Eddie found his whole body was suffused with power and his heart burning with a new, glorious purpose: Revenge.

~

There wasn’t too much Eddie could say in favor of the room other than it was tolerably clean and affordable even on the scant money he made writing tabloid stories.

It was certainly a long way from the grand mansion Eddie had grown up in, and at another time he would have been ashamed of living in a hotel that rented rooms by the hour as well as by the week, but he’d come a long way from the spoiled rich kid he once had been. 

Now, he wouldn’t trade this dingy little room for that mansion even if he could. This place felt more like home than those cold, hollow rooms ever had.  
Besides, they had everything they needed here and, thanks to a particularly lucrative and ridiculous series of articles he’d written about a band of mutant vigilantes living in the sewers, they were paid up through the end of the month.

Eddie whistled as he shook the microwave popcorn out into a bowl, taking it and one of the beers from the mini-fridge to plop on the edge of the bed in front of the room’s ancient and battered TV. Free cable was one of the perks of living in a hotel, and he flipped through several channels before settling on one that played old movies.

He prefered documentaries and true crime shows, but he knew his other adored cheesy action flicks, particularly ones with lots of one-liners where the hero triumphed against overwhelming odds, and he wanted to share his good mood.

Eddie scooted back on the bed, leaning against the headboard. He held up the beer in a silent request and a black tendril formed from his chest and pried the cap off for him, and he took a sip as the movie started.

It was around the first shoot out that Eddie, reaching for another handful of popcorn, was surprised to feel his fingertips scrape the bottom of the suspiciously empty bowl.

Curious, he looked back up at the TV, pretending to be engrossed as the carnage continued on the screen but keeping the bowl in the corner of his vision. Sure enough, it wasn't long before a ribbon of black snuck into the bowl.

”Ha!” Eddie crowed in triumph even as the tendril retreated quickly, several fluffy kernels still sinking into its surface like mammoths into a tar pit.

Dryly he added, ‘Darling, if you wanted some you should’ve said. I’d have made two bags.”

To his surprise, the little bit of teasing seemed to hit his other hard, and shock and confusion surged through their bond.

“Oh God, I was just kidding!” Eddie said, alarmed. “You can have all the popcorn you want, I’ll make more during the next boring exposition scene.”

The confusion only grew and thorough it his symbiote pushed a question into his mind, **Darling?**

“What?”

**You called me darling.**

“Did I?”

**Yes.**

“Sorry. I won’t do it again if you don’t like it.”

**What does ‘darling’ mean?**

“Ah,” Eddie said, embarrassment blooming as he struggled for an explanation. “It’s just a nickname, like ‘buddy’ or-” he floundered, trying to think of another name that wasn’t so sentimental.

Unfortunately, the symbiote could hear his thoughts as well as his words and finished the sentence for him. **Or sweetheart?**

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Like that.”

**These are names humans call their romantic partners, right?**

“Most of the time, yeah. Sorry.”

**Why are you sorry Eddie? Do you not want to think of us as romantic partners?** The question was carefully neutral, but a thread of hurt bled through that neutrality.

“No, it’s not that, dar-” he hesitated, then decided to go with it, “Darling. I just thought you wouldn’t like it.”

**Why?**

There was no easy answer to that and Eddie felt a kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions tumble through his mind as he looked in vain for an explanation, a mess of self doubt and fear of rejection.

Luckily, that seemed to be answer enough for his other. They broke into his growing panic with a soft, **Oh.**

Eddie could only shrug helplessly in reply, still overwhelmed by his emotions. 

Again the symbiote saved him from his turmoil. **I like the name, Eddie. I have never had a name before.**

“Really?” Eddie demanded. “Never?” 

**No. My race do not have separate names, we are never meant to be alone.**

“Well that’s really stupid.”

Bristling, the symbiote shot back, **Yeah, well so are genders but I do not make fun of you, do I?**

“Okay, you got me there. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just hard for me to imagine. Didn’t you ever want a name?”

**Why would I need one?**

Eddie floundered at the question. “I dunno. Just to have an identity of your own, something that separates you from all the other symbiotes, a part of you that is uniquely yours.”

**No! Do not want to be different. Do not want to be marked and abandoned. Want to be like all other Kyntar!**

The panic radiating from his other hit Eddie like a physical blow, all the harder for how surprising the outburst was, and for a moment all he could do was reel from the impact.

When he could, he tried sending soothing thoughts back through the distress, gently crooning, “It’s okay, darling. Everything is okay now.”

It seemed to help and gradually the symbiote relaxed. **I am sorry, Eddie. It is just that I was always different and I hate it.**

“How were you different?” Eddie asked, curiosity winning over his compassion as it so often did.

**I always wanted more from bonding, even though hosts are only meant to be used, I wanted to be partners.** Then, hesitantly, they continued, **And I have the mark…**

“What mark?”

Even more hesitantly, the symbiote flowed out of his chest, nearly knocking the popcorn over, and Eddie quickly set the mostly empty bowl on the nightstand as the familiar head shaped in front of his. When it was full-formed, his other blinked rapidly a few times before looking down at what Eddie supposed would be considered their chest, and they both watched as a small scribble drifted around from their back to center itself there.

“Huh,” Eddie said, trying to hide his disappointment at the anticlimactic shape. “Where did that come from?”

**I hide it away, keeping it on the other side of me from whoever is looking, but it is always there.**

“What is it? An old scar or something?”

**No. It is something I have had since I was spawned.**

“Like a birthmark?”

There was a pause as the symbiote looked though Eddie’s mind, finding the meaning of the term before they agreed. **Yes, it is. But Klyntar do not have these. Only I did, and the other called me malformed and corrupted because of it and cast me out of the hive.**

Their feelings were overflowing with hurt and Eddie’s heart broke with them. “I’m so sorry, Darling. I can’t even imagine how hard that was.”

The small black head tilted in a symbiotic shrug, but Eddie could still feel the sadness.

Slowly, giving the symbiote time to stop him, he reached out to run a finger lightly across the mark in a soothing caress. As he did, he got a better view of the imperfection, and with a shock, he recognized it. “That’s my name!”

**Is it?** the symbiote asked, equally surprised. **It does not look like your name.**

“That’s because it’s my signature.”

Confusion came through their link, so Eddie explained more. “It’s how I sign my name on papers and stuff.”

**Oh. It is not very easy to read, is it?**

“Nope, signatures aren’t meant to be.”

**Why?**

“I don’t actually know for sure, but lots of people do it so it will be unique when it appears on their soulmate’s arm.”

**Soulmate? Like in the ones in movies?** the symbiote asked, nodding its head at the still running television.

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed. “Like that.”

**So, we are soulmates, Eddie!**

“Unfotunally, that’s not possible, Darling.”

Feeling the symbiote’s hurt and disappointment, Eddie apologized, “Sorry. I would love to be your soulmate, I really would, I just can’t. 

**Why not?**

“I’ve never had a soulmark, so I can’t have a soulmate,” Eddie said, his eyes reflexively darting to his arm.

He stopped dead.

The spot that had been so long blank now had a row of bold, black capital letters that read, _Darling._

In the back of his suddenly still mind, a very smug voice said, **See, I was right, soulmate.**

_Epilogue _

Together they flipped from the top of the building, their claws leaving a deep gash in the bricks as they dropped towards the street stories below. 

Eddie reveled in the property damage, happy to inflict costly repairs on the wealthy elite who owned all of downtown, and they enjoyed the sharp edge of his exaltation as much as the feeling of the air rushing by them as they fell.

The pavement was approaching quickly, the pedestrians on it looking up and pointing before they threw out an arm, shooting a web out to turn their fall downward into a forward motion. 

As they skimmed over the watching pedestrians heads, they sang, “Would you like to swing on a star, Carry moonbeams home in a jar…” 

On the arm holding the web the mark they’d once hated and hidden away was now proudly displayed, the untidy scrawl just barely legible as the name _Eddie_.


End file.
